It’s only a few weeks until January when our One Read reading panel begins to narrow down the list! There are many nominated books for our community-wide reading program for 2022 and we appreciate the panel’s effort on our behalf. In the meanwhile, please continue to enjoy our reviews of some of the suggested titles. 

“The Secret History of Home Economics” opens with the stories of Ellen Swallow Richards, MIT graduate, chemist and public health official, and of Margaret Murray Washington, who created the program at Tuskegee and authored “Work for the Colored Women of the South,” the first household manual for Black women. We learn about the home economists who helped spread the Electrification Program in farm country and those who worked with Eleanor Roosevelt to help women feed their families during the Great Depression.

Read how the field exploded opportunities for women in the twentieth century by reducing domestic work and providing jobs as professors, engineers, chemists, and businesspeople. Danielle Dreilinger’s book honors these pioneers for their common goal to improve women’s lives with education and science, to strengthen the family and to give women the tools they needed to prosper as modernization spread through city and farm.

Catch up on earlier reviews or check back for more One Read nominees. We will be posting throughout the month of December.